Page 11 of Delay of Game (Norwalk Breakers #4)
ELEVEN
GRACIE
The faint smell of meat loaf and pancakes lingered in the cafeteria despite a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Only a few teachers littered the giant space. In only a few days, the tables would be packed with kids sitting elbow-to-elbow.
Lily narrowed her eyes at me, a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich in her hand. “So, he wants to help repair the house…why, exactly? To make his mom happy?”
“I guess.” I shrugged, toying with the small pile of baby carrots sitting in front of me.
She set her sandwich down. “And you’re just accepting that excuse at face value?”
“What am I supposed to do? Grill him? Tell him no thanks?” I sighed and threw down the carrot in my hand. “Remember the outlet in the bathroom that sparked every time you used it? Well, he fixed it. For free.”
She leveled her gaze at me with an air of amusement. “Nothing in life is free. Is he single?”
I shrugged. “Probably. I feel like his mom wouldn’t be so eager if he had someone.”
“Are you sure he isn’t interested in...” Even a day before school actually started, her eyes darted around the cafeteria, and she lowered her voice. “ Mingling with you?”
“Mingling?”
“You know what I mean.”
I laughed. “No. Rob does not want to mingle with me. Not even a little.”
“Sure,” Lily scoffed. “He just has a real passion for home improvement projects.”
“His mom is friends with Aunt Mercy. She’s worried about me. Worried I don’t have anyone else.”
“Which you don’t.”
“Hey!” I gasped. “I have you.”
“Alright, you have one person.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “You could use another. Especially if he’s cute.”
I didn’t answer, but my burning cheeks gave away the answer.
“Oh, so he is cute. What does he look like? Do you have a picture? Do you want to mingle with him?”
I shifted in my seat. “He’s not exactly mingle-able. And no, I don’t have a picture. Why would I have a picture?”
“You don’t take pictures of strange men you let inside your house? Just in case you go missing and the police need to pull your phone records and find out who you were with last?”
“You’ve really got to stop listening to that true crime stuff.” I packed up the rest of my lunch, saving it for a snack later.
“At least tell me what he looks like,” she pressed, making zero move to pack her lunch and follow me back to the classroom before our next in-service.
“He’s…” Handsome. Hot. Definitely out of my league. “You know what? Let me just search for a picture of him. I bet I can find one.”
“Oh!” Lily stood up and wedged herself into the bench beside me. “Did you already Internet stalk him? Did you find his dating profile?”
“He plays for the Breakers. I’m sure they have a picture of him on their site.” I typed the name of the team into my phone, pulling up the official website.
“He’s a player?” Lily squealed as he grabbed the phone from my hand, swiping back to search. “What’s his name?”
“Rob Grant.”
She tapped the name into my phone. Her jaw dropped. “Oh my…he was in your house?”
I nodded. “Last night.”
She enlarged a picture of Rob in a tuxedo at a charity gala. He stood in front of a white backdrop, the name of the charity unreadable. Cameras flashed around him, and he stared at the photographer with barely a hint of a smile. Even just a picture of him sent a jolt down my spine.
Lily still hadn’t picked her jaw off the floor. “And nothing happened?”
“It’s not like he came over in a tuxedo.”
She swiped away to another picture, this one on the field, his face red, sweat on his brow as he squared up against a player. “He looks pretty good in anything.”
I agreed, though I didn’t voice that opinion aloud. “He’s doing me a favor. I’m not going to sit here and objectify him.”
“Honestly, Gracie.” She paused on a picture of Rob holding a kitten, pointing the swoon worthy picture straight at me. “My ovaries are squeeing. This man needs to be climbed and conquered like Mount Everest.”
“His kid is in our class,” I reminded her.
“I’ll be her new stepmom.” Lily shot me a devilish grin before her eyes fluttered back to the phone. “Oh, damn. He’s a brawler, too.”
She tapped a video entitled, “Rob Grant’s Most Vicious Hits.” The first clip showed Rob in a #90 jersey, launching himself at a running quarterback. He wrapped the player up, throwing him in the circle before slamming him to the ground. The crowd groaned as the player bounced off the turf.
“Now imagine him doing that to you in bed?” Lily waggled her eyebrows.
I grabbed my phone out of her hand and closed the video. “Absolutely not.”
As soon as the words escaped my mouth, a vision of Rob stripped down to boxers invaded my brain.
His callused fingers warmed my skin, wrapped around my waist and he hoisted me flush against him, my feet pinned into the back of his knees for purchase.
Black stubble brushing my cheek and his breath hot on my neck.
“Okay,” I conceded. “But it’s still inappropriate, all things considered.”
“It’s inappropriate that you ended up on his doorstep instead of me.”
I closed my lunch bag and slipped it over my arm, standing up. “Well, great news! You’ll meet him tomorrow.”
“Oh, no,” Lily groaned. “They’re coming back tomorrow? I sort of like the school better without all the kids.”
I grinned as she scooped up her trash. “Kindergarten is officially happening.”
“I should have switched to fourth grade when I had the chance.” She held her wadded up trash overhead, free throwing it into the bin with a satisfying whack.
The classroom presentable and all my paperwork filled out for the coming school year, Lily and I ducked out of school a few hours after lunch. I drove home with the windows down, my favorite radio station playing.
“And this is 88.1, WVBA, the tidewater’s only community-supported alternative radio station. I’m Addy Harlow and I’ll…uh…be playing…well, it’s sort of hard to describe. Like David Bowie but if he played surf rock. Whatever. Enjoy.”
A strident guitar riff took over the airwaves before a quartet of singers blasted into a song about space. I turned up the volume, holding my hand out the window, enjoying the breeze even though the summer heat burned my skin whenever the car stopped.
I turned onto Rose Street, a street synonymous with my favorite aunt and summer fun.
She’d been born and raised on the property, inheriting half when her parents died.
Grannie sold the land immediately, having already moved out of state to start a family.
But Aunt Mercy built a two-story farmhouse overlooking acres of woodlands.
And over the years, those acres of woodlands became dotted with distant houses.
And then neighbors, and finally subdivisions.
Not that I minded. Having neighbors meant having kids to play with, and I stayed out too late on hot summer nights playing in the creek across the road and hide and seek in what remained of the woods.
And then I moved in with Aunt Mercy, and somewhere along the way, Rose Street became my home too.
But soon, it wouldn’t be anymore.
I bit my bottom lip, turning up the radio to drown out my thoughts as I slowed, anticipating the horde of kids playing soccer or baseball in the middle of the street. Instead, a plume of dust greeted me.
I pulled into the driveway, barely able to see more than a few feet in front of me, and exited the car.
“What are you doing?” I yelled, covering my face with a scarf stashed in the backseat.
Rob wore a respirator, a pair of gym shorts, and nothing else. A film of white concrete coated his torso, and the haze it left in the air pricked my eyes so I couldn’t even get a good look. Probably for the best.
He held a sledgehammer over his shoulder, swinging it down onto the concrete steps by the sidewalk and sending chunks of cement everywhere.
I leapt back, avoiding the spray of rock. “Rob!”
He lifted the sledgehammer again. I waved a hand in his eyeline, but not so close as to risk my fingers.
He paused this time, dropping the hammer and knocking an ear bud out. “Hey. There’s a lot of dust. You probably shouldn’t be this close without a respirator.”
“What are you doing?” I said, ignoring his comment but tightening my grip on the scarf.
“I’m fixing the stairs.” He wiped off a bead of sweat with the back of his hand, smearing the fine powder onto his forehead. His lips tipped into the barest hint of a smile, warming me more than the summer heat.
“Okay, but why?” The interior of the house was a mess. Even with the bathroom fan fixed and the wiring in the bathroom no longer permeating a burning smell every time I turned the fan on, my extensive notes began and ended inside the house.
“These were a death trap. Your mail carrier is going to break a hip climbing up and down these in the winter.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I avoided the steps as much as possible and sort of assumed the mail carrier and delivery drivers did as well.
“Besides, I have this sledgehammer and haven’t used it yet.”
I dropped the scarf. “So, you picked a project based on the tool you wanted to use?”
He shrugged, the hint of a smile blooming into a full-blown one. “Maybe. And I had a bunch of concrete left over after putting up some posts around the house. It’ll just rock up if I don’t use it soon.”
I nodded, awe-struck by the way the smile transformed his face into someone entirely approachable. I’d seen glimpses of that smile when he was with Mila or talking to his mom, but it had never been directed at me. Or maybe it was directed at the sledgehammer…
No, me. Definitely me.
“I actually came over to fix the leak in the kitchen and maybe check out the rest of the plumbing, but I don’t have a key. So, I tackled the stairs instead.”
“Right. You should totally have a key.” I rifled through my purse. I found Aunt Mercy’s key tucked in an interior pocket and held it out. The smile on his face had faded, but a residual softness remained as his fingertips brushed mine as he took the key.
“Thanks.” He stuffed it into his pocket and picked up the sledgehammer expectantly.
“What can I help you with?” I asked, not quite ready to walk away from him.
He shook his head. “Nothing. This is dusty as hell, and I’ve only got one sledgehammer.”
“I doubt I’d be very good with a sledgehammer, anyway,” I admitted. Pushing back a soft stab of disappointment, I retreated into the house to the steady sound of the hammer hitting cement.